


All Through the Night

by fangirl_screaming



Category: The Last Kids on Earth (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant, The Author Regrets Nothing, angsty because i had to be That Person™, ngl I thought of quitting the story a lot of times because it was so extra, no beta we die like Jack's sanity and biological parents, so not that far fetched huh, then I remembered jack literally got jealous of a radio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_screaming/pseuds/fangirl_screaming
Summary: Jack fights June's clone. And though it may look like he has won, he forgets one crucial thing: This is Rezzoch he's fighting against.And Rezzoch never leaves without a horrible twist.
Relationships: June Del Toro & Jack Sullivan, June Del Toro/Jack Sullivan
Comments: 23
Kudos: 45





	1. Nine Twenty

**Author's Note:**

> very special thanks to my good friend daisies-growing-in-my-skin on tumblr who listened to me info dump about this fanfic about a very niche show she never even heard of!!
> 
> you the real one, sis 💛

The imaginary Joe's Pizzeria in Jack’s head is filled with grunts, sounds of weapons clashing and heavy breathing. The group is currently fighting their own evil twins that Rezzoch has created in Jack's mind. Neither parties can get a worthwhile conclusion. The group is tired of fighting their own carbon copies, and Jack knows that they'll probably get defeated if they don't switch tactics soon.

  
As he dodges another close hit from his own clone, a sudden idea strikes the boy. “We need to switch pairs!” he yells as the rest of his friends gather around him. With Quint wasting no time to tackle fake Dirk ( _‘Is he crazy?!’_ he thinks for a split second, but shrugs it off. This isn't Quint's first time fighting things twice or thrice his size, and it certainly won't be the last) and Dirk doing the same for the curly-haired boy’s—smaller— evil twin, Jack is left to face June.

  
Chills run down his spine as his sweaty grip on his baseball tightens.

  
He takes a deep breath and gulps, trying to brush off the uneasiness in his stomach.

  
With a battle cry, he lunges at the girl.

  
The fight is tough. Even though Jack has seen her fight countless times and thinks that he has a pretty solid tactic to beat her, it’s still challenging (the fact that he’s already tired from his fight with his own copy doesn’t help either). Even if they sparred against each other one on one, he thinks that he still could not have prepared for this. The clone with the inverted colors is merciless; her moves are sharp, quick and fatal. Yes, Jack knows, this is exactly how real June fights.

  
Yet, somehow, it feels more… different. More _corrupted_.

  
The clone's moves—unlike real June—is powered by frenzy, malice and a poisonous desire for revenge. Her expression does not have even a sliver of humanity left in it, and Jack tries not to get too taken aback by the burning hate in her black eyes. Every slash of her spear, every jab of the sharp point is controlled by disorderly animalistic urges. The girl's spear and his spiky baseball bat clash against each other rapidly and the stodgy noises they make almost have a rhythm.

  
_'Wait, no, that hit came three beats to early.'_

  
_'And that one is two beats too late.'_

  
Jack _really_ needs to stop thinking about useless stuff and concentrate on the fight that’s literally right in front of him.

  
From the corner of his eye, he sees her—the real June—knock his copy to the ground with a smooth move of her spear, and a sudden wave of courage washes over him. He suddenly flits from defense to offense, his strikes grow bolder and bolder every second. Clone June (unsurprisingly) doesn't expect this, and her responses get weaker with each move of Jack's bat as he backs her up to a corner.

  
And finally, the brunet knocks the evil clone to the ground with a rather satisfying ‘thud!’. The sweet adrenaline coming from triumph rushes through his veins as he stares at the limp body with a grin.

  
But of course, he forgets.

  
He forgets that they're fighting against Rezzoch, _Rezzoch_ for God’s sake, and forgets that she probably won’t go down without one last horrible twist like she usually does (and has done, many times in fact). 

  
Why would this time be different?

  
The clone's colors abruptly change, and it looks like it's June—the real one—slumped on the corner. His nose fills and burns with the metallic stench of blood. His eyes open wide as he realizes the blood running down the limp body, from the very obvious wound in her stomach.

  
His mind goes blank as he collapses next to the body. 

  
“June..?” he weakly whispers as he feels tears pricking his eyes.

  
“Jack?” With a confused voice coming from behind him, he snaps out of his trance and blinks a few times. The clone is still in it’s normal inverted colors and there's no blood anywhere, the scorching feeling in his throat is gone.

  
“Is everything okay?” asks June, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  
“Let's move on,” the boy responds as he gets up from the ground, lightly brushing the girl's hand away from his shoulder. 

  
Quint opens his mouth to say something (probably about why he avoided the actual question like nothing happened), but closes it when he decides not to push it further.

  
Their time is running out.

  
The environment around them changes with a swirl and they proceed to the next stage.


	2. Half Past Two

Jack wakes up with a desperate gasp for air and looks around, his heart rapidly pounding in his chest. There's no other light source than the soft light of the full moon shining upon him and his friends. It's a bit hard to see clearly, but it’s enough.

  
June is slumped over the seat they share, her chest rhythmically rises and falls as light snores escape her lips. Dirk and Quint are both asleep in the seats in front of them. The tapping on the yellow umbrella has stopped and drops of water run down the edges, indicating that the rain has stopped. Each drip glints like pearls with the soft light.

  
The boy sighs and rubs circles over the sides of his forehead.

  
He can't sleep. Great.

  
Thanks, Rezzoch.

  
He just… _can’t_ forget the vision he saw after defeating Clone June in his mindscape. No matter how hard he tries to forget, he just can't. The sickly, metallic and oddly familiar smell of blood tickles his nostrils and makes his stomach queasy. _Again._ He has long forgotten how many times he woke up with the horrid nightmare his subconscious seems to be obsessed with. 

  
A strong, humid gust of wind slashes against Jack, and chills run down his spine. The extra coldness on his cheeks make him realize that he had been crying. He sinks deeper in the blue, oversized Funland sweater he's wearing and wraps his arms around his knees. He rest his head on the back of the seats. 

  
“It was just a dream,” he whispers to himself as he wipes the remaining tears in his eyes away with the sleeve, “it was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream…”

  
He sniffs and sighs again, letting the cold evening breeze brush against him for a while.

  
He really isn’t looking positively to sleeping tonight. He grabs one of the leftover gummy bear packs and proceeds to watch the sight for the rest of the night. 


	3. Quarter to Six

As the gentle reddish rays of the rising sun shyly shine upon her, June wakes up and stretches her arms and legs. She quietly groans to herself, realizing she's the first one to be awake (she doesn't like it when she’s the first one to start the day, but considering it's literally the sunrise, she isn't surprised).

  
Her gaze moves towards the brunet boy sitting next to her. His back faces her, so she can't see his face but she assumes he's asleep just like the duo sitting in front of them.

  
The smell of petrichor fills her lungs as she lets out a long sigh. With her arms crossed in front of her chest, she rests her head on the edge of the rollercoaster.

  
She thinks about last night. Thoughts have been pestering her mind ever since they got out of that battle in Jack's subconscious—which probably explains why she's up in the brink of dawn.

  
She just… _cannot_ get Jack's expression out if her head, when he dropped to his knees after the fight with the evil clones. His feint whisper of her name, the look of absolute despair and loss and terror in his eyes, the way he was moved to tears that quick…

  
It doesn’t sit right with her. She knows he couldn't just drop everything and not carry on with the fight against Rezzoch, but the battle is over now and they have plenty of time to talk about whatever he saw or encountered right then.

  
“Oh… you're awake.” She jolts with the sudden voice coming from her left. She looks at the source, and is greeted with a pair of dark blue eyes looking back at her.

  
A pair of blue eyes, which… don't seem to have gotten much sleep.

  
“Good morning, Jack,” she replies and awkwardly waves her hand.

  
“Anything from the radio?”

  
The girl looks at the radio in her lap and shakes her head in disappointment. “Nope, nothing yet.”

  
“Oh.” They delve into silence. June occasionally sneaks some glances at the brunet boy: His tired, dull eyes absent-mindedly scan the horizon as occasional sighs leave his lips. 

  
She can't bear seeing him troubled like this. It's so… opposite to his normal character it's almost ridiculous to think of, and whatever it is that has him so lost in thought and miserable, June has to get to the bottom of it.

  
“Hey Jack.” The boy turns to her. “Can I ask you something?”

  
His body tenses up a bit and his eyes grow nervous.

  
“What's up?” 

  
“Well… what did you see yesterday? Like, right after we defeated the clones. One second you're grinning and the next you’re almost going to cry on the floor. What's the deal?”

  
Jack breaks the eye contact they had and sighs, looking down at his feet. There's an uncannily—scarily almost—gloomy expression on his face. No answer.

  
The concern in June's stomach swells. “Jack..?”

  
He shakes his head like his trying to get something out of his mind, and speaks.

  
“Well…” he says, but he trails off. June has never heard him talk so… broken. His voice trembles despite his best attempts at calming himself down, his hands clasped on his lap are shaking.

  
“One second it's the clone with the inverted colors lying on the ground and the next second it-it's you, with the correct colors and all, and there's all this… all this blood on you a-and on my baseball bat too, and for a second I… I thought—” He looks at her again, his eyes are softly glimmering with tears.

  
He tries to swallow the knot in his throat and continues. “I… I’ve been seeing n-nightmares every time I tried to sleep. I see _you_ … lying dead on the floor in the s-same position of the-of the clone and I _know_ it isn't real but I just can’t help but feel… afraid because what-what if it _actually happens_? What if I… what if Rezzoch somehow manages to reach our dimension and makes me do it..?” He sighs and rests his forehead on his palms, his fingers go through tufts of brown hair and brush them away from his face.

  
Jack looks up when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and his eyes meet June's. She's looking at him with her head slightly bowed to the side and a soft expression, tender and understanding. 

  
She opens her arms with a gentle smile on her face. Returning the smile and sighing in relief, Jack leans in and wraps his arms around the girl. She rests her head on his shoulder and her palm starts rubbing small circles on his back. Her embrace is warm and soothing; his body relaxes, his erratic breathing calms down (the butterflies in his stomach are doing the exact opposite of calming down, however). 

  
They stay like that for a while, the only noises around them being the rustling of leaves beneath them and the morning serenade of the remaining birds—oh, and can't forget Dirk's snores.

  
Hesitantly, they let go of each other and return to their previous positions like they don't want to let go just yet. Jack rubs some tears away from his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater.

  
“Thank you, June,” he says, looking at her with gratitude. “I… I needed that.” June's heart skips a couple of beats with his smile.

  
“Don't mention it,” she replies with a small giggle. “Now, try to sleep a bit, even if it's just for a couple of hours. We don't want our team leader to be all sleepy in front of a fresh page with new adventures, do we?”

  
The boy's small smile grows into a beam and he chuckles. “Alright.” He turns his back to June, crosses his arms on his chest and rests his head on the seats. He's knocked out only minutes later, his chest rises and falls slowly and rhythmically, his lighter snores mix with Dirk's.

  
June spends the rest of the moments she has to herself watching the sun rise from between the mountains over the horizon, listening to the serenades of birds, and listening for the radio signal. She feels skittish, there’s this fuzzy and jumpy… thing in her stomach and that thing is very persistent at trying to steal a few giggles out of her. Her cheeks feel warmer than she thinks they should be. 

  
Her gaze occasionally slips at the boy, and a smile makes its way to her face whenever she thinks about their hug. As the slight wind brushes against her face, she relaxes, and her eyes start closing. She drifts off to a shorter yet more peaceful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand it's finally over!! hope you enjoyed it!!


End file.
